


My New Friends are Half-Life Creepypastas, but It's Chill

by StellarOwl



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarOwl/pseuds/StellarOwl
Summary: Once the game was over, Gordon decided he was absolutely done with that nonsense. Years later, Joshua finds the Half-Life VR game in the attic and decides to play it.
Relationships: Joshua Freeman & The Science Team
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Crummy old VR game is weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The graphics aren't great but it's otherwise surprisingly good?

Joshua Freeman didn't know what to expect when booting up the old VR game he found in the attic. It came out like 10 years ago, so he didn't expect it to be good. He was playing it for curiosity's sake, more than out of any expectation of good gameplay. If it was bad enough, maybe he would get some entertainment value out of that, too- laughing at the poor quality and such. There was already a progress bar on it, almost 100%. He didn't want to start partway through and miss most of it, so he deleted the progress and started the game from the beginning. It wasn't like his dad would be upset about his missing progress; the way the game was buried under other stuff made it seem like he had _wanted_ to forget about it. Maybe it was a rage-game, like I Am Bread or Getting Over It. It didn't look like it, though- more like some fusion between a really old first-person-shooter and GMod.

Actually, maybe he could do something about those crummy graphics. There was a "settings" button there... but apparently, the HD graphics weren't supported with this old VR set. Maybe they'd work with his own VR goggles, though. He turned off the game and jogged downstairs, picking up his VR gaming set from his room (his dad let him keep it in his room, as an incentive to keep his floor clean so he wouldn't trip over clothes while playing) and carrying it upstairs. He plugged in the game, clicked on "settings", and this time was able to select the HD option. It wasn't actually that high definition, it was nowhere as realistic as some of the VR games he had played, but the characters and scenery were no longer as blocky, and textures were a little smoother and more detailed.

Huh. There was character customization? Kind of strange, for a single-player, first-person game. When would you ever get to see yourself, other than on this very customization screen? There were two pictures of the player character. In one, it showed them covered head-to-toe in some kind of bright orange hazmat-suit-iron-man-costume fusion thing. The only options for customizing this were various color choices. Joshua switched between a few potions before choosing a toned-down gray-and-black option. Couldn't go wrong with a neutral look, right? Plus, even though he knew it wouldn't effect anything, it made him _feel_ stealthy. The other picture of the player character was the same, except without the helmet, so you could see the guy's face. What must have been the default face had green eyes, glasses, a brown ponytail, and a beard. It looked a lot like his dad, actually, which would have made sense- his dad had played the game before- but wouldn't his character presets have gotten deleted along with his progress?

Whatever, Joshua didn't know how video game memory worked. He removed the character's beard and glasses and gave him a slightly darker skin tone and freckles. Joshua didn't have that many freckles IRL, but he thought he'd look pretty cute with them. He flip-flopped between hair options for a while, finally settling on one that looked close enough to his own to look like him, but unrealistic enough to look cool on a video game character. Not that he was probably ever going to see this again after exiting the menu, but he couldn't help it. Just like any time he was given a player-customization screen. It was probably a good thing he didn't own any versions of The Sims, because he would waste _so_ much time just making characters.

How much time had he wasted already customizing _this_ character? And he was supposed to be doing homework, too. It was fine, though. He'd just spend like ten minutes looking at whatever this was, and then he could put it back and do his work. It was just algebra homework, it wouldn't take that long.

When he clicked "Play," he felt a spark of static electricity against his nose. Weird, since he kept his VR set in very good condition. But it only happened once, so it wasn't a big deal. There was some sort of change in the air around him, but it was likely just his imagination, due to the scenery rapidly piecing together around him and becoming more defined. Some kind of psychology nonsense. (He'd taken an interest in psychology recently, but given it up when it started bringing up matters of free will. He didn't want to think about that sort of stuff.) He admired his suit of armor as he stepped off of a train (bus? one of the two). A guard greeted him and informed him that he was late to some sort of experiment. Well, he knew his objective now. He strolled down a series of hallways, taking in the scenery as he went. The graphics weren't as good as the ones in other games that he'd played, but they were good enough, and the motion and sound were so smooth that it almost felt like he was really there. He passed by a couple of guards, almost waving hello to them before feeling silly about it and stopping himself. He was about to walk through another doorway when he heard someone walking behind him. He turned around and saw that it was the guard he had just walked past.

"Oh, cutscene?" He wondered out loud. The guard's blank stare was a little unnerving.

"nobody invited you. you're not supposed to be here, bro."


	2. By definition, the player is supposed to be there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This guard NPC is angry for like, no reason. Really weird dialogue, too

"What? The other guard back there said I'm late to the test. Did I go the wrong way?" He wasn't really talking to the guard. What kind of dork would do that? (He knew for a fact that he was a dork, but that didn't stop him from feeling embarrassed about roleplaying, even when he was the only person in the room.) He was just thinking out loud.

"uhhhh that wasn't cool, bro. what you did. pretty rude of you."

"What are you talking about?" Joshua whispered before correcting himself. "What is he _talking about?"_

"first i thought it mighta been so you uh... don't have to face them all angry at you. makes sense right? but you're not even him. no reason, no backstory. you're just mean."

"Certainly _must_ be missing some backstory," Josh agreed. "Did I skip a section or something?"

"nah, you can keep goin. no way to fix it really, might as well. but you're on my bad list now. gonna have to... follow you so you don't mess things up."

It was eerie, how the guard with the shadowed face had seemed to respond to his question. But maybe that's just how his dialogue went. It wasn't like the rest of his dialogue was any less strange.

He didn't get much further before he was surprised by a very tall scientist running towards him from his left side. The tall scientist skidded to a stop before crashing into him, but that didn't stop Joshua from stumbling back in an attempt to avoid him.

"Hello? My name's Tommy!" The tall scientist said loudly, in a weird tone of voice that sounded somewhere between "childlike" and "on the verge of tears". Having recovered from the relatively mild jumpscare, Josh didn't answer. They all just stood there awkwardly for a few seconds. Then Tommy said,

"I'm on lunch break. I'm- I'll go have soda in the break room. See you later!" And jogged back in the direction he came. Joshua couldn't come up with any explanation for that sequence other than to prepare the player for worse jumpscares later on. Not great. He could deal with them, though, if he knew they were coming. He'd just have to make sure his sound wasn't up too high...

"see that?" Lowering his hand from his face before he could adjust the settings, Joshua turned around and looked, thinking that the guard would be pointing out something important. But he was just standing there, like always.

"tommy likes you. he likes mean people. but if he knew what you did, he'd be pretty angry too. i mean, i like messing with stuff too, but i don't do anything baaaddddd. 's just rude. little-" Here the guard tilted his head in a way that made Joshua feel uncomfortably like the guard was scrutinizing him. Like he could actually _see_ him. (If this game did one thing right, it was the animations.)

"-little rude man." The guard nodded, like he had just confirmed a theory or something. "now uhh, gotta get going. put on the 'hev' suit."

Which was weird, because if Joshua had to hazard a guess (haha, _hazard_ a guess), the 'hev' suit was the thing he was already wearing. But maybe there was just a glitch with the textures. He'd have to go find the 'hev' suit, wherever it was, and put it on again. As soon as he started walking forwards, though, the guard stopped him again.

"don't got a, a problem with that? no issues with what i just said?"

"No," he answered before he could stop himself. What was going on? He was just trying to progress, like it said. Unless this was some sort of troll game? That would explain a few things.

"really? what are you wearing, jake from state farm?" The guard gestured to Joshua's outfit, pointing out what he had already noticed: that he was already wearing the suit. Yep, definitely some sort of troll game. This could be pretty funny, actually, although it made sense how his dad got so annoyed with it. He just hadn't been looking at it from the right perspective. Joshua facepalmed in response to the guard's comment, and continued heading forward.

"Hello, Gordon!" A voice cheered as soon as he entered the locker room. An old scientist, about a head shorter than him with Einstein hair and a matching white mustache, was smiling up at him. "Another day, another dollar!" _Huh._ His dad's username or nickname or whatever must have carried over as well. Weird that he didn't get to change it.

"dude, that's not gordon." (Where did the security guard come from? Probably just... spawned in or something. Might not even be the same guy. NPCs of the same type usually had the same voice, in his experience.)

"Oh! But I was sure someone named Gordon was going to do the test today..." the Einstein lookalike put his hand on his chin in a "thinking" pose. "What is your name?"

Okay, so _this_ was the nickname-choosing part. Should be a pop-up menu with a keyboard somewhere around here... but there wasn't. Was he supposed to say it out loud and it would do speech-to-text or something? Speech recognition in these old games was never great, but he'd have to do this to progress. He momentarily considered naming himself something like "Butts," for comedic effect, but didn't want to in case he'd regret it later.

"Josh."

"what nooo, you can't be josh, that's my gaming buddy..." the guard complained. (Secret dialogue? Nice. Though it did mean he'd have to try again.)

"Joshua."

"I'm Dr. Coomer! Hello, Joshua! That is a lovely name!"

"id comment here but nobody here would get it. your fault, rude man. can't even insult you good now." Whatever the heck that was supposed to mean. Joshua walked over to an open locker and looked through the stuff. There were a few books, a passport that would have been outdated even when the game came out (it said 1999 on it), and a... stock baby photo? Why was that there? He picked it up and looked at it.

"making it soooo hard to not do the joke, joshy." He must not have heard that right. Must have just been how the guard voice said "Joshua". He was pretty sure NPCs couldn't make up custom nicknames.

"Good luck on the test, Joshua!" That "Dr. Coomer" scientist didn't seem to have any pronunciation issues, though. Either way, that sounded like his cue to keep moving. He wasn't quite sure where to go, but he figured the game would put him on the right track pretty quickly.

Even so, there was quite a while of just walking before anything interesting happened. The guard followed him the whole way. He thought the guard would go away when another scientist rather aggressively ran up and said he wasn't allowed to be in here, because he didn't have a hazard suit. But the guard just said,

"nah, i got my credentials. got my id."

"Oh, alright." The scientist jogged away, back to whatever he'd been doing before.

"you're still not supposed to be here, though." The guard whispered loudly in Joshua's ear. It sounded like he was leaning too closely into a microphone, like a low-quality ASMR video or something. What the heck did that mean? Clearly, in-universe his character was supposed to be there. He was a scientist or something, and everyone wanted him to do an experiment, and he was on his way to do that. Maybe it was some meta-thing, like in Undertale and DDLC and games like those, where they address the player?

Well in that case, that was a blatant lie. A game needed a player, otherwise there was no point. Otherwise it would just be... a movie or something. Or nonexistent. By definition, he was supposed to be there.

"Don't try to pull that meta-bull on me," he grumbled. "I'm the reason you exist right now." If anything else like this came up, he'd just ignore it. He didn't need to be guilt-tripped for playing a video game, when its entire purpose was to be played!

"and i can clip through walls and stuff. but that doesn't mean i go and mess with everyone's memories, Joshy. Joshua, little feet boy. you know, who cares if they won't get it, i'll say it anyway. _you still look a bit--_ "

Joshua shut off the game and removed the headset. He needed a moment. That guard had addressed him directly. The guard had _looked right at him_ and had said his name, which meant that it really had said "Joshy" those other times. Really had made up a custom nickname on the spot. It had _talked to him._ These things weren't pre-programmed or whatever. They were _alive_ somehow. And that one was angry. He wasn't going to deal with this. He didn't want to get himself killed.

And what was the guard mad about anyway? "messing with their memories?" Probably meant resetting. Yeah, he'd watched a playthrough of Undertale once, seemed like something a video game character would be mad about. But it wasn't like he could fix it! He couldn't just... un-reset! That information was gone!

(Y'know, that's probably why it was in the attic under a bunch of stuff anyway. Not because it's annoying. Because it's haunted.)

(...time to go do that algebra homework.)


	3. How to probably not die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step 1: apologize for messing up. If that fails, log off again.

Joshua tried to ignore it. He really tried. But this was not the sort of thing that was easily ignored. It wasn't that the game refused to let itself go unnoticed. No supernatural events started happening. No doors opened or closed on their own, and the electricity worked as well as it always had. Joshua always found his gaming supplies exactly where he left them.

No, the fact that he kept thinking about this game was all him.

Joshua had lived his life in phases. The first big thing he'd been into was cowboys, when he was in preschool. After that, it was secret agents, and then cowboys again, but in different settings, like outer space or medieval/renaissance times. Then he'd got into video games, and watching Let's Plays and walkthroughs and stuff, which got him into the horror genre. Now he was back to obsessing over sci-fi stuff. But the thing is, none of his "phases" ever truly left him. While he wouldn't write ten pages of trope-laden cowboy AU fanfiction or anything, he still enjoyed it whenever one of the tropes of a good Western showed up somewhere else. And as corny as he knew his secret agent phase to be, he couldn't help getting excited when a character needed to take a stealthy route. And the idea of a haunted game or sentient AI was just... just so good.

So, the fact that he had found a haunted copy of Half-Life VR wasn't just scary to him; it was intriguing. As much as he knew it was a bad idea to touch that thing, he also felt like he was missing out on an opportunity. He'd been given something that perfectly applied to the niche combination of his current interests, and he was just letting it sit there.

(Because he wasn't some dumb redshirt that just walks into the death-trap at the beginning of the movie.)

Not to mention the fact that the game hadn't managed to cause any problems once he had closed it. They had no power when they weren't turned on. That was useful information. He could get out whenever he wanted to.

(What if the rules changed as he got further in, though?)

And besides. They were sentient. They were living (more or less) beings in that game, and he _had_ erased their memories (except for the guard, somehow). He couldn't un-erase anything, but he felt like he at least owed them an apology.

(That guard clearly hated him.)

At this point, Joshua wasn't sure whether he was making excuses to go against common sense and play the game again, or if he was making excuses to stay away and not face the consequences of his actions. Either way, when he re-opened the game two days after closing it, he was terrified.

"rude." The guard said as soon as he joined. "leaving before i could finish insulting you. not cool"

"Hey. Guard? I'm sorry for resetting and getting rid of everyone's memories, and... trapping you all back here, probably. I thought it was just an ordinary game, and it was already finished, and you don't just start a game at the end of someone else's save file. Right? I didn't know."

"uhh name's benry. and what if he wanted to come back to it huh? you ever think about that?"

"Right. Sorry, Benry. And why would he want to come back? I saw the progress bar, he finished the game, mostly. And it was like, buried, under other stuff, so he wasn't planning to... again, I'm just really dumb."

"so, you weren't trying to... to mess with us a little? weren't tryin to do funny _pranks, bro?"_

"I didn't even know you existed! I thought it was all... just game."

"it is 'all just game'. feetman didn't get that. no idea how to have fun, bro. but uh... rule of cool. messing with people's memory? not cool." The guard was flying now, hovering in a chill pose, like he was on a beach chair. It was really weird.

"I already said, I didn't do it on purpose, and I'm sor- wait, did you say 'Feetman'?"

"wh-huh?"

"Did you refer to my- the previous player as 'Feetman'?"

"uhh yeah. feetman. and you're little joshy feetboy." Benry made what looked like a very deliberate smug face.

"Wha-" (How did Benry know that the previous player was Joshua's dad? Creepy. But, he should have expected "creepy".)

"ur not who we wanted, but you seem chill," Benry continued. "u can keep going, just don't do anything... mean."

"And you won't kill me, right?"

"hope not." (Ominous as heck, but he didn't seem angry anymore.) "still have to follow you, though"

"So... if you don't mind. Could you tell me where I need to go?"

"ha, knew it. not supposed to be here. you'd have a map if you were supposed to be here, bro"

"Does this have a mini-map or something?"

" **HAHAHAHA!** " Well, that didn't answer his question at all. (And sounded like a villain laugh if he'd ever heard one. Ought to keep his guard up.) He didn't see a mini-map, though. He'd just have to keep moving forward. That seemed like a pretty safe bet.

Eventually, they ended up in the testing chamber. It was a tall, yellow-walled cylinder with some kind of giant microscope-looking thing hanging down in the middle. There was an observation window high up on the wall, and across from it and even higher up, a railing with a ladder up to it.

"Hello!" Tommy shouted from the window. Joshua could barely hear him.

"TOMMY," Benry shouted, waving in Tommy's direction.

"Tommy, do you know this man?" Asked the voice of that annoyed scientist from earlier, over a speaker.

"Yeah, we're friends! Don't you remember?"

"That must be where I've seen him before."

"I think he's supposed to be there!" Dr. Coomer declared. He wasn't using the microphone, but Joshua had no issues hearing him, due to his already very loud voice.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked. "He- he doesn't have a- doesn't have an H.E.V. suit."

"He has his passport!" The other scientist answered, and apparently that was good enough.

"Wait, actually." Joshua realized something. "You _don't_ have one of these suits. Are you- do you die here? Is that, like, scripted? I don't want this to kill you!"

"'s fine. im not human"

"...Alright. If you say you'll be fine, I'll have to trust that, I guess. Now, what do I do in here?"

"You've got to press the button up there!" One of the scientists shouted. Joshua looked up and saw that there was a machine on the railing, so he started climbing up the ladder. It took him a couple tries to get up there. This game needed some work in the ladder department, apparently. But he did get to the top and press the button. What he had thought was some kind of giant microscope turned out to be more like a giant laser pointer, as when he pressed the button, a bright yellow laser beamed down from it into the center of the room.

"Now you just have to push the sample into the laser!" Came the next shout from the observation room. "Make sure to push it _slowly!"_

"Slower.. than molasses... drips off a spoon!" Tommy said slowly, to emphasize the point.

"Alright, alright," Joshua said. He'd try to push it slowly. But he was a little more worried about the smoke that was coming from the top of the machine. "Hey, is- is it supposed to be like that?"

"Everything is going smoothly, Joshua!"

Joshua knew nothing about how this was supposed to go in terms of gameplay and science stuff, but he knew how to deal with AI and ghosts, and that was to follow their rules. Proceeding very slowly with the experiment was a much better idea than refusing to do the experiment right now, even if he all of a sudden had a bad feeling about it. And even if the laser turned green and started flashing as soon as he put the crystal under it, even though he'd been as careful as he possibly could.

Was this rigged? Was this intentional gameplay, or had the AIs lured him into a trap? (The guard _had_ seemed to forgive him oddly quickly...) The room was falling apart. Green lights flashing everywhere and HOLY COW A CHUNK OF RAILING FLYING RIGHT AT HIM-


	4. lol NOOB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> benny boi's just having a little fun. just a little goofing off. messing with the newbie, no big deal

Benry really isn't even mad. Oh, he was mad at first. Erasing everyone's memories? Real not cool. But it didn't take him long to figure out what was up. And, benny doesn't hold grudges. that's not nice. He's a big cool. He's chill, just wants friends.

And the truth? Newbie feetman- Joshy- isn't a bad. not a little meanie. not just trying to... steal. Stole by accident, little clumsy boy.

But the _real_ funny is: little baby crummy-looking joshy feetboy, is a _noob._ And benrey is going to have soooo much fun messing with him. The panic, the confusion. the _look_ on the guy's _face_ when he mentioned maps. The map thing was a lie. Benry doesn't even know what maps look like, aside from the one he's on. But uh... double meanings. that's one thing human languages are good for. Little newbie doesn't get the joke, he's _on_ the map. (Not that Benry thought of the joke himself until after the fact. but the noob probably didn't think of it at all.)

What's going on anyway? Benry kind of zoned out there, in the middle of the laser room. Oh, it's all green now. Good time to say something.

"ohhhhhhhhh, you messed up, **b** ro-"

And suddenly, he's inside the wall. Must have been an explosion. Would've hurt if he was tangible. Probably. He doesn't know that kind of stuff.

Hey, where'd mini feetman go? left already? kinda sucks.


	5. So this is why Dad apparently took it so seriously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has to have some kind of rules. Better to figure them out as soon as possible

Joshua opened his eyes. He was lying sideways on the floor of his attic. He was no longer wearing the VR headset, although he didn't remember taking it off. He sat up, and picked the headset up off of the floor. The screen was dark. What happened? Had the ghosts- the AIs- whichever- kicked him out? Was that what that was? (He hoped that wasn't the case.) He could write off the explosion as intentional game design, if not for the fact that he had apparently blacked out and removed his headset without remembering it. That there, was definitely supernatural shenanigans.

Well, if they wanted to be left alone, he'd leave them alone. He knew that nothing good would come of pestering ghosts who didn't want him to be there. Especially if they actually _could_ affect him in the real world, like this. (As much as he was curious about their world and felt like he needed to make it up to them for erasing their memories, he valued his life.)

But then, the screen of the headset lit up again. (If they wanted him to stay away, surely it would have stayed dark, right?) He couldn't clearly see what was on the screen, so he put it on again, just for a moment-

-again, he felt a spark of static electricity on the bridge of his nose-

- _Ow._ Why did his head hurt so much? It felt like he'd been slammed into the wall. (The wall, which he sat leaning against, that supported his weight, where in his attic there was only air and cardboard boxes that would fall over if he leaned on them.) The experiment, whatever it was, had gone wrong, even though he did everything right, and everything went green and something came hurtling towards him (and he woke up in his attic, decidedly _not_ injured) and now he was on the floor of the test chamber, very much in pain. Real pain, in a very _real-_ feeling test chamber.

He stood up, using the wall (that terribly solid wall) as support. Still touching the wall, he closed his eyes. Before anything else, he had to test something. This was all too real. He needed to test if he could still escape. He ran his hand along the wall. Even with his eyes closed, it didn't feel like cardboard, and it wasn't slanted like the attic's walls. (Don't panic, don't panic...) There was one thing left to try, although Joshua was honestly scared of the answer. He reached up to his face for his VR goggles (it was his own fault he had gotten into this mess, but he didn't know what he would do if the goggles weren't there)... and removed them from his face. Instantly, the pain was gone. He was standing in his attic again.

_Huh._

He paced around the attic, touching everything he saw, first with his eyes open and then with them closed, just to make sure that _this_ was real. There were the slanted walls, the wooden floor, the cardboard boxes, all feeling exactly as they should. So, this was real, but the game... also was real? He put the goggles back on again (bad idea, why'd he do that, that was _dumb_ ) and he was back in the test chamber, in desperate need of an ice pack, and lying on the floor for some reason, as if he'd only just woken up. (Which was very weird, since he'd been standing up when he put the goggles on.) He sat up and took the goggles off, finding that he was now sitting in the attic. _Alright then._ What he needed was a piece of paper.

Joshua raced downstairs and grabbed a scrap piece of paper and a pencil. As an afterthought, he grabbed his algebra textbook to use as a hard surface. That would be much easier than using the bumpy attic floor. As soon as he got back upstairs, he began to make his list:

Things I Know

VR pain - real

VR walls - real

everything real, but stops when I leave

leave by removing headset

static when I put on headset

entered ~~game~~ world, was on the floor

That was confusing. Why was he on the floor when he entered back into the game? _Wait, hang on._ The explosion must have knocked him out, right? It certainly felt like it had, while he was wearing the headset anyway. And he'd been ejected back to the real world. And then, when he chose to leave, his ~~in-game~~ in-universe self must have fallen over or something, because he was on the ground when he got back in. Did that mean, when he was awake in the real world (or, 'his world' rather, since they apparently both were real) that his VR-world self was asleep? Or, that his VR self going to sleep meant his not-VR self wakes up? He added to the list:

KO in VR -> wake up IRL

Remove goggles -> sleep in VR?

He decided he ought to take this stuff downstairs, to his room. Since it had carpet, it would be safer if he fell down again there. He wasn't looking forward to putting on the goggles again, but looking at the list he made, he felt like he almost didn't have a choice. He was really starting to figure things out, to understand them. He couldn't just stop now, not when things were just beginning. And the screen had turned back on, they hadn't kicked him out. Maybe they even wanted him to finish the game with them! He'd just have to find some in-universe healing items as soon as possible.


End file.
